


Night Moves

by JJ_Jupiter



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Brother/Sister Incest, F/M, Female Sam Winchester, Genderswap, Het, Heterosexual Sex, High School, Implied/Referenced Character Death, John Winchester Being an Asshole, Minor Character Death, One Shot, Other, Pre-Series Dean Winchester, Pre-Series Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Pre-Series Sam Winchester, Road Trips, Rough Sex, Sam Winchester Leaves for Stanford, Season/Series 01, Sexual Tension, Sibling Incest, Spooning, Teenagers, Vaginal Sex, Wincest - Freeform, Winsister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:20:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25230772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JJ_Jupiter/pseuds/JJ_Jupiter
Summary: Dean bought a pair of aviators at a gas station in north Texas while they were in the middle of their big au revoir road trip to California. It had been a whole summer job from East to West with stops at fake haunted houses, sleazy motels, cheesy tourist traps, travelling carnivals and whatever else they could fit in between.  A farewell tour for Sam.  It had been unspoken, of course, but they had dragged out the trip for as long as they could.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55





	Night Moves

**Author's Note:**

> (title from the iconic Bob Segar song featured in my all time favourite episode: 11x04 ‘Baby’)
> 
> Written in a non-linear timeline between pre-series and season one. In this AU Sam has always been a girl. Not related at all to my other Winsister fics. I just like the dynamic when Sam is a girl, what can I say.

*

**  
  
**

Dean bought a pair of Ray-Ban Aviators at a gas station in north Texas while they were in the middle of their big au revoir road trip to California. It had been a whole summer job from East to West with stops at fake haunted houses, sleazy motels, cheesy tourist traps, travelling carnivals and whatever else they could fit in between. A farewell tour for Sam.

It had been unspoken, of course, but they had dragged out the trip for as long as they could. 

The cashier had flirted with him, insisted he was like James Dean incarnate with those things on, so he paid for them with the gas, smiled with all his teeth and stuffed her number in his back pocket. The filling station had barely been a mile in the rear view when Sam had plucked them off the dash and tried them on, tilted a grin at him from the passenger seat, ruffling her own hair at her reflection in the wing mirror before she got back to her book.

They were just hers after that, kid hardly took them off all summer. They went with her to Stanford and Dean used to wonder, every time he had to squint the sun out of his eyes through the windshield during the months and years afterwards, whether she still had them or wore them, the vision of her grin popping up in his mind’s eye. 

Now he wonders whether they got melted up in the fire with the rest of her worldly possessions. 

He dumps the contents of his duffel out on to the floral motel bedspread; about half of his stuff is clean (by his standards anyway).

“Take whatever you want,” he offers with a sweeping hand gesture. “We’ll pick you up some new clothes, whatever you need, first thing tomorrow, okay?”

Sam sits on the other bed and stares at his laundry, her nose and mouth still grimy, charcoaled black. The clothes she’s wearing are singed with holes and the acrid smoke stench clings to her, following them around like a dark shadow. They had watched, helpless and lost from the professionally manicured lawn, as her apartment burned. As her world burned. After a tirade of questions, warnings, condolences from the fire officials, the police department and what seemed like the entire campus population, Sam had instructed him to just get her the fuck out of there. 

"You should take a shower and try to get some rest,” Dean suggests, itching to get out of his own ashy, stained clothes. “Just use my toothbrush, if you want,” he says, trying to get an ‘eww’ face out of her at least. Sam doesn't say anything. If it were anyone else, a civilian, he’d assume they were in shock, in a stunned stupor under the weight of sudden encompassing grief but Sam’s still a Winchester and Winchesters don’t _do_ shock. They don’t have that luxury. 

He crouches in front of her, pushes her hair away from her face so he can get a good look. She isn’t burned or injured. At least not on the outside. 

“Are you with me, Sammy?” he asks, voice hushed like they’re sharing a secret. He knows she knows this game, ( _nod once for yes and nod five times for no)_ a joke when they were children that followed them into adulthood and became a real litmus test for consciousness, for checking the severity of damage mid-hunt. 

Sam grabs the flannel at his shoulders by way of response, squeezes the material until it pinches him. She holds for a moment, grounding, before she leans forward and presses a gritty kiss to his forehead, hands cupping his ears. It’s not the reaction Dean was expecting so he freezes at first, moves out of her way in a slow daze when she finally gets up. She snags a dirty t-shirt from his pile, a clean pair of boxers, heads to the bathroom and Dean lets out the breath he feels like he’s been holding since the second he threw her over his shoulder and carried her, screaming, her from the incinerating deadly heat inside her Palo Alto bedroom. 

*

Dean stops to gas up before they hit the next border, estimates it'll be a couple of hours till the sun disappears and if she wants to pee she better go now 'cause he's not stopping again. She rolls her eyes at him, stretches when she gets out of the car, shoulders and spine cli-click-clicking as she arches herself and Dean winces, he hates the sound of bones.

Can't help giving her his attention again when she opens one of the back doors, shoves her new jeans down right there in the 'lot and kicks out of them.

"The hell are you doing?"

She just looks at him, shimmies a pair of his grey PT sweats up over her thighs and hip checks the door shut.

"Settle down, grandpa, there's nobody around. I have cramps and those jeans are too tight. You want somethin' for the road or what?" She's already walking towards the store, impractical flip flops slapping loudly like another little rebellion, doesn't give him a chance to come up with an answer. _College girl-Sam_ tests his patience.

He fills the tank, blue triangle of her panties burned into his retinas, catches sight of her through the store window on his way past to take a leak, browsing the sunglasses carousel with an empty basket hanging off her arm like they got all freakin' night or somethin'. 

When he comes out of the bathroom she's eating an ice cream, leaning against the shell of an old tractor taking up space and collecting grass in the corner of the 'lot, plastic bag of supplies at her feet. The new Aviators look good on her, familiar and authoritarian; she’s collecting new belongings almost everywhere they stop, slowly fattening up her duffel bag. 

"Thanks for locking the car, dumbass.”

He smirks, fingering the keys in his pocket; they haven't had a chance to get her her own set cut yet. He gets a waft of sweet frozen vanilla as he steps closer that sends his tongue to the roof of his mouth and nods at her ice cream cone.

"Where'd you get that?"

It's her turn to smirk as she points to a truck across the street, the guy pulling the shutters closed and locking it up.

He watches her turn the cone as she draws a long amassing lick, deliberate, smearing her tongue, a tumble of wet pink and white that triggers more obscenities in his head and makes his dick tighten behind his fly ridiculously, adolescently. 

"Sorry,” Sam says, smugly delighted like she knows. “I think I got the last one.”

Dean flips her off. 

Sam shuffles around in the car once they get back on the road like she's trying to find a comfortable position for the long haul even though she must remember that it's virtually impossible with legs that go on for hours like hers have since she was blessed with them during her teenage growth spurts. Dean doesn't bother reminding her, just watches without being obvious as she shifts, hangs over the seat retrieving his jacket from the back to shove into the corners, to cushion the hard edges along the window. 

She nests in eventually with her back against the door, bare toes edging under his thigh and a pile of reading material in her lap. She goes through two newspapers, an old issue of The Incredible Hulk, skims a National Geographic and finally an old copy of one of his Maxims. Tosses them all into the footwell when it gets too dark to read.

" _G_ _od,_ can we change the music, Dean? You've been playing this tape since we left Ankeny," she informs, already leaning, reaching under him for the tape-box, one hand braced on his thigh, careless.

He knows he's changed the tape at least twice but then her cheek's on his thigh too, box snugged further under the seat than she expected and he has to hold his breath the whole time until she sits up and slumps back onto her own side, blowing her bangs out of her eyes as the cassettes clatter.

"Which one's the one with Kashmir on it?" she asks and he feels the wheel start to pull under his fingers, remembers he's driving and it's dark and for Christ’s sake he should be watching the fucking road. He cracks his window, feels the sweat prickle along the back of his neck.

"Dean?" she prompts, nudging at his leg with her little toes, all painted neatly but there's not enough light to see what colour for sure. Probably red. It takes him a second to remember the question.

"Uh. Physical Graffiti, last track on the A-side." He has to look over when she doesn't do anything, feels her staring at him, can practically hear the cogs whirring in her head.

"You alright?" she asks, genuine and suspicious. 

He ejects the old tape, nods at her to feed in her new selection. Having her back in his personal space all the time is jarring. He mourned for it after he’d dropped her ass in California; kept seeing her shape and shadow on the edge of his peripheral vision all the time. Kept talking out loud to her ghost in the passenger seat. Kept half waking up in the dim early morning greyness and reaching out in search of her across the expanse of his cold mattress. 

When the living room light had popped on in the apartment in Palo Alto and ‘Jessie’ had appeared in the doorway, baseball bat braced, Sam had introduced them and Dean had taken a long look; Jessie was the polar opposite of him in every sense and Dean had just hated him on sight. On principle. 

“Wait, your _brother_ Dean?” Jessie had repeated, surprised at Sam’s gritted introduction, bat lowering immediately. 

“The one and only, and Jessie? I gotta say, my sister is _completely_ out of your league.” He had known it was petty, but he’d meant it. Maybe if he had known it was the last and only thing he would ever say to the guy, he wouldn’t have been such a dick. Maybe.

Sam had rolled her eyes hard, told him to shut up, but he could see the blush in her cheekbones. Jessie had been a gentleman, Dean would give him that. Reverently respectful of Sam and not rising for a moment to Dean’s baiting. 

“Don’t you _dare_ speak to Jessie like that again. _I mean it, Dean,_ ” Sam had hissed at him out by the car, later. “I love him,” she’d said simply. 

Dean had felt like he’d been kicked in the chest. 

He glances over and she’s asleep, or faking it well, head jostling against the window a little. The jealousy and inadequacy washes over him like acidic bile just like every time he thinks about handsome, tall, smart, earnest, _pre-med_ Jessie and about Sam’s perfect years away from hunting and this toxic, dangerous life. 

Dropping her off at school and leaving her there had torn him apart. Meanwhile, Sam had adapted, thrived at normalcy, just like they’d all known she would. Four years and a fiancé later, and she’s got to have forgotten about the dark, twisted crush she’d had on Dean growing up, right? The crush that forced the issue, forced the separation in the first place. It had been the safest and best thing for both of them. 

When Dean had unpacked her on campus and was starting the car to leave, and she had finally cried and begged him, “ _Dean, you don't have to go. We can still do this together. Please?"_ He had done the _right_ thing, handed her a wad of cash, driven off, broken both their hearts and for what? 

The only thing Dean had learned from leaving Sam behind in the years of dark hunts, misery and heartache that followed was that he could never and would never be whole without his sister and that he’d made an unforgivable mistake. They’ve still ended up exactly where they would have been anyway, Dean thinks sourly. Except now Sam hates him for abandoning her, she hates their father for excluding her from the family business, her boyfriend is _dead_ and Dean…He hates himself for all of it. **  
**

*

When Sam had been a senior John had promised her they would stay put for her to finish high school in one place (a promise he compromised heavily with by leaving on solo hunts for sometimes months at a time). Dean, insane with boredom, accidentally slept with every bar waitress from the only local tavern within the first month of them moving there and rendered himself unwelcome. 

He took on factory work in the steel mill, went out for the closer, low risk hunts, never more than two days out. He did all their laundry, washed all their dishes, laid all the salt lines and protection runes weekly, made sure they always had milk, eggs and beer in the fridge. He paid the rent on time, kept the phones charged, taxied Sam wherever she needed to go, signed permission slips for extracurriculars and provided smoke soaked lunch money. New bra money. New sneaker money. Advanced study college course book money. He babysat dutifully, falling into the same harmonious domestic rhythm he and Sam always had when John wasn’t around to butt heads and unsettle their raft. 

The dusty town where they’d rented a three bedroomed farmhouse with a leaky roof on the outskirts still had an honest to god drive-in movie theatre and Sam and Dean had made it a Friday night ritual, no matter the film. 

They would load up on salty snacks, grab a six pack on the way. Nestled in amongst a tired arcade, pawn shop and 7 - 11 there was a small family owned Greek deli that Dean thought maybe he alone was keeping in business. 

Andreas, the manager, knew their order by heart. “Two souvlaki with everything coming up,” he recited with a grin when he saw them and Dean grinned back, the smell of fried onions and garlic making his mouth water. 

It was early but there were teenagers around, high schoolers congregated around their cars, meandering at the entrance to the convenience store. Two guys in letterman jackets sneered at Sam as they passed by the deli and Sam prickled instantly, the atmospheric change causing Dean to snap to attention.

“Hey, _Samantha_ ,” one of them said, tone mocking, making her name sound like a punchline in itself. The other dropped an obnoxious _coughslut_ and laughed out loud. _Original,_ Dean thought, watching Sam roll her eyes and flip them off. 

“What’s that about?” Dean asked before he could stop himself. Seventeen had come with a new set of girl rules and regulations and they’d had more than enough fights about her privacy, her maturity, how embarrassing he was and how much he needed to _stay out of her goddamn business_ for him to know it was dangerous territory to try to pry on her high school life. 

“They’re just jerks from the football team,” Sam said, glancing over at their crowd. “The blonde, Philip, he grabbed my ass when we were coming in from field hockey when I first started the year here - and I mean like grabbed _grabbed_ , Dean."

“Okay,” Dean said evenly, shifting from foot to foot, impatient. 

“I was really mad. I broke my hockey stick over his head,” Sam said, corner of her mouth curled. “I mean he had his helmet on, but it still hurt him. Since then though, I guess…”

“So since then you’re a slut?” Dean surmised. He looked over at the little punks, could feel the give of nose cartilage under his knuckles; a phantom longing. 

“No, they _hate_ me because of that. I’m a slut because they see _you_ pick me up. I ride around with a hot older guy who has a reputation in this town for only being interested in _one thing_ ,” Sam explained, sing songing as if the high school politics should be obvious to him. 

“I’m a slut so you’re a slut by association? What, because we’re related?” Dean asked, laughing a little bitterly. He fucking hated high school, honestly. The drama and hierarchy and gossip was always worthless to him, its importance a totally bizarre concept. 

Andreas whistled, _order up_ , deposited a brown paper bag on the counter for them. 

“They don't know we’re related. They think we’re dating,” Sam supplied, grabbing the food while Dean fished in his wallet for cash. 

Later as the movie started, Sam put her legs over his lap and slid the beer out of his hand, wiggled her toes in silent request for a foot rub.

“Why not just tell’em I’m your big brother?” Dean asked, his thumb already working over the hard knob of her ankle.

“Why should I? Why should I tell them anything?” Sam said. Not defensive, just thoughtful. “They don’t know the first thing about us, Dean. I want to keep it that way.” 

Dean didn’t want her catching shit at school for being his sister _or_ his girlfriend but he got it; knowledge is power so why give them a single crumb? They didn’t deserve the truth. 

“Fine… But if that trust fund jockstrap asshole touches you again -” he started. Dean would run him over with the car and then reverse over him until he was minced roadkill, helmet or not. 

“Urgghh, shut up,” Sam interrupted, groaning. “I can handle it.”

A week later, the next time they’d needed to walk past a gaggle of teenagers at the grocery store on the way back from training, Dean had reached over and grabbed Sam’s hand, lacing their fingers together tightly. He waited until they had a captive audience before he lifted their tangled fists to kiss her lightly on the knuckle in an overly romantic display and she had laughed out loud at his amateur dramatics but she hadn't pulled her hand away. 

John had come home not long after that battered and bruised, limping, after six weeks of chasing a family of rawheads around the Midwest and he stayed home for a while to recoup. Long enough to hear the small town rumours for himself and long enough to start paying attention. 

In the line at the post office the clerk glanced around him, smiling fondly at Sam and Dean outside goofing around by the car. Soda spraying and a clumsy piggy back ride. 

"Young love, huh?" she chuckled kindly and John stared at them with her, unamused. 

He started to quirk his mouth disapprovingly at their easy affection and lingering touches. He watched Sam with a frown on his face when she pulled Dean’s worn t-shirts out of the laundry basket to sleep in. He raised his eyebrows, unimpressed, when Sam hooked herself over Dean's shoulder during the breakfast rush and swigged from his coffee mug, took bites of scrambled egg directly from his fork. He shook his head when the mandatory sparring dissolved into grappling play fights and roll arounds. 

Then one night after three beers he vocalised that he didn’t _like_ the fact that Sam and Dean were falling asleep in the same bed sometimes in Dean’s room. 

“It’s the only place in the house we get decent reception on the TV,” Dean had said, defensive and guilty, balking at the veiled insinuation. John had just grunted.

“It’s a little late for you to start showing an interest in where your kids are sleeping _now_ isn’t it?” Sam had scoffed sourly, not even looking up from her AP algebra. 

“Watch your mouth,” John had warned, but the truth of her statement hung in the air like a rotten smell, obvious to all of them. Sam had been sleeping in Dean’s bed whenever she wanted since she was six months old, after all.

That night, Dean had woken up to Sam climbing on to the mattress beside him, burrowing under the covers and pulling his arm across her body, assuming their usual and favourite position. 

“Dad’s gonna kill you,” Dean had mumbled even as he shifted himself to her long demanded spooning specifications; his face in her hair, his crotch snugged up against her ass, slotting together with no gaps like jigsaw pieces.

“Fuck him,” Sam had said defiantly. 

When Dean’s alarm had gone off at the crack of dawn, as always Sam had pushed herself back against his morning wood, the flare of her pelvis fitting perfectly into the cup of his palm, making them both groan.

“Five more minutes,” Sam had sighed, her sleepy hips rolling against him slowly. “Please? It feels so good, Dean.” 

As always, at her command, Dean had pushed away from wakefulness, hit the snooze button and run his nose up the back of her neck. He sealed their bodies together as tight as he could, savouring every extra second of the comfort and closeness. 

*

On Sam’s last ever day of high school, Dean had been late to pick her up because he had gotten into a fight with John about her leaving for college. 

The arguments had started weeks before when Sam had cut short her training session at the gym and Dean had let her jog off to the showers early. John, observing them from the back of the room, had taken issue. 

"Is this the type of half assed shit you just let her get away with when I'm not home?" John had demanded, coming around to hold the punching bag Dean was laying in to. 

"She has cramps," Dean gritted out, trying to perfect his combinations and resist the urge to punch his father straight in the face. 

"So she should have warmed up better. She needs to walk it off and get her ass back on the mats," John argued, absorbing Dean's hits with his feet planted firmly. 

"Not muscle cramps," Dean said, exasperated. He stopped for a beat to shake the sweat out of his eyes. John stared at him blankly and he wondered what unspeakable crime he had committed in a past life that meant he now had to stand in a testosterone packed martial arts gym explaining the ways of mother nature to his middle aged ex-Marine of a father. " _Period_ cramps."

"Oh, and that's an excuse?" John rolled his eyes. "You need to step it up as well, Dean, this bag is only two hundred and fifty pounds and you're barely moving it. Is it your time of the month, too?"

Dean had bitten his tongue, taken a big, load bearing breath, then thrown his right shoulder into his next hit hard enough that it knocked the bag and John back two steps. The smack of the impact reverberated around the small gym, made heads turn. 

"Again," John ordered. 

The irritation didn't stop. Weeks of tension, weeks of barbs flying in every direction, culminated and stewed because John had no objections to Sam going to college but he seemed to still be punishing her for the decision. Pushing them harder and longer in PT. Quizzing them relentlessly on obscure lore and symbolism. Calling them out awkwardly for even the smallest infraction to the rules.

When Dean had gotten home from the mill that day John had told him that if Sam was old enough to run away to college and look after herself then she was old enough to put her own ass on a bus to California and make the journey herself because he had more pressing concerns: a haunting on clear the other side of the country that was a two man job. 

Dean had been so frustrated already, so _pissed,_ at his father’s nonchalance, he had dug his heels in for once. He’d point blank refused. 

“Our whole lives you cram it down my throat that family is _everything,_ you drill it into me that my _only_ job is to look out for Sammy and now you expect me to what? Buy her a bus ticket and just let her go?” Dean seethed. “I won’t do it. Why is this so goddamn _easy_ for you, huh?”

It had been a bitter enough pill for Dean to swallow that she was going at all; no way was he letting her travel alone. He wasn’t ready. Dean had known he was too angry, his voice too loud, but he was almost eye to eye with John by then, almost pound for pound and he wanted fucking answers. John’s face was murderous.

“She's eighteen, Dean. She’s not a baby anymore. This is for her own good. It will do _both of you_ some good to have a break from each other because frankly, son? Your judgement could use some work when it comes to your sister!” John had stepped in, closed the gap between their chests, challenge obvious. 

“You do remember she’s your _sister_ , don’t you?” John had whispered traitorously and Dean had swung on him before he even understood that he wanted to and John had swung back and meant it. They were too close to one another to do any real damage, more of a grapple than a fist fight, ending as abruptly as it had started with a lucky elbow to John's nose and an explosion of blood all over their second hand couch. 

Dean had pulled into the school parking lot, almost twenty-five minutes late, with his jaw radiating pain; he never wanted to be on the receiving end of one of John Winchester’s molar rattling left hooks ever again. 

Sam had flung herself down into the passenger seat, let her backpack fly into the back, uncharacteristically carless, clearly ready to bitch him out but instead she had taken one look at him and her mouth had snapped shut. 

The sudden jolt from behind and the unmistakable crunch of one of their taillights shattering into a thousand pieces was followed immediately by whoops and hollers of laughter drifting in from the open windows of the truck behind them. Sam had recognised it, had already been out of the car yelling, “ _What the fuck, asshole!"_ when they had been struck a second time. The deliberate hard kiss of the truck’s grill against the Impala’s back bumper making Dean lurch forward. 

Sam leaned back into the car, pupils wide. 

“It’s Philip and his friends,” she supplied, eyes scanning him, darting to check points on his body to see if he was packing. “There’s four of them,” she said, totally resigned for what she knew would happen next. 

The car was off fucking limits and Sam knew that well enough that there wasn’t even a hint of an attempt to placate or talk him out of it. Dean felt a smirk on his face, felt the unfinished business adrenaline that had been trembling along his nerves since his scuffle with Dad start to smooth out, the serenity that always came with violence washing over him. He turned off the ignition, shook out his shoulders to loosen up as he stepped out of the car. 

He glanced at Sam over the roof, flashed her a smile. 

“Four on two… They need another few guys before this is a fair fight, huh?” he said and was blinded by her grin, the fond shake of her head making her bangs fall into her eyes; an image of her that he photo captured in his mind, to store away with the others. 

"Try not to seriously maim anyone," Sam sighed, her eyes already laser focused on the leering kid stepping down from the truck's passenger seat. 

Dean couldn't promise that. In his experience high school football players could never fight worth a damn; too big and slow, too used to having padding. These guys were no exception. Dean ducked Philip’s sloppy right cross as he approached and used the guy’s own meaty momentum to slam him into the side of his truck and knock all the air out of him. Dean whacked his head into the window once and marvelled at the bullseye of spider cracks. Punk had a head like a cannonball. 

His buddies didn't fare any better; one of them tried to put Dean in a choke from behind but got the hold all wrong, easily maneuvered into an arm lock and a broken wrist. The third kid fancied himself a boxer but got his lights put out with a neat one-two jab from Dean in about two seconds. It was over with in less than a minute, reflex quick and tidy, no wasted movements; textbook takedowns. 

Then he caught his breath as Sam walked around the back of the truck, presumably having dispatched the fourth guy with relative ease, and reached into the driver’s side cab to pull the keys out of the ignition. Dean chuckled as she wound her arm back like a major league pitcher and launched them across the parking lot, over the small crowd that had gathered, and into oblivion. 

Dean sucked on one of his bloody knuckles, flexed his fingers as Sam crouched in front of Philip, slapped his face a couple of times to wake him up a little bit. 

“Where’s your wallet?” she demanded, starting to pat him down as he groaned. “You’re fucking paying for that taillight, pig.”

Even though it was only mid-afternoon, they’d driven to the town’s highest point, up winding dirt hills that wreaked havoc with the Impala’s suspension, to a ridge where kids sometimes went to have sex in their cars or camp after dark. They spread a blanket on the hood of the car and sat atop, sapping the heat from the ticking, cooling engine below, watching the slow little town beneath them and keeping an ear out for sirens. 

They shared a six pack, courtesy of Philip. Sam had listened to Dean tell her about his fight with their father, a sad look on her face the whole time. 

"Why don't you just come _with_ me,” Sam said, nudging closer, glancing at him from underneath her long lashes. The pain in his jaw had flared as he’d clenched his teeth. 

“I can’t,” he’d croaked. Tightness blooming in his chest just like every time in his life he’d ever had to say no to her. He couldn’t leave dad, ass that he was. Dean had had to weigh up what was more dangerous; hunting or college? There was no competition for who needed him more. “I’ll drive you though and get you set up. I was thinking we could leave a couple of weeks early. Make it a road trip. Sam Winchester farewell tour?” 

It hadn't been any kind of consolation really but Sam had nodded anyway, squinted out into the breeze so he couldn't gauge her true reaction; a move she’d learned from him.

“Yeah, okay... I’d like that,” she’d said, and when she’d looked back at him she had leaned in and in. Sam pressed her lips against his, let out a soft mewl of relief or amazement against his mouth when he didn’t retreat. He let her in instead, let his mouth open under her pressure, kissed her back.

Sam had been ravenous, trying to get as much as she could while she had permission, years of wanting driving her. Maybe it had been the adrenaline, or because Dean had known they didn’t have much more time left together, maybe it was a ‘fuck you’ to their father, or maybe just because he fucking wanted it as much as she did, but he didn't have the strength or patience to keep her at arm’s length any longer. 

Dean had cupped her head, taken her weight as she pressed closer, urged her to slow down with light touches and kissed her back in a way that he hoped would convey how precious she was to him.

“God, I _knew_ it would be like this. _Fuck_ , Dean. Why make me wait so long?” Sam’s voice vibrated against his lips, murmuring words without breaking contact like she couldn't get enough. Her wandering hands dropped to the hem of his t-shirt, quickly exploring, impatient for more. 

“Let’s get in the backseat,” she breathed against his mouth, forehead knocking against his. Feeling his hesitation, she tugged on his belt loop. “Come on. Please, Dean, I want this. Stop pretending you don’t.”

“Alright,” Dean had agreed after a moment, senses heightened with both lust and terror alike, following his girl down the rabbit hole. 

*

Their road trip was like a dream; the first and only vacation either of them had ever had and they ran wild with the freedom of not being tied down to a location or a hunt. No dad. No monsters, no ghosts, no lore and no rules, just loud music, open roads, mind altering sights of natural wonder and beauty, and far too much sugar and caffeine. They stayed up late every night, not wanting the days to end, and they woke up early every morning tangled in the same bed or backseat with a luxurious abandon that they’d never been able to have before. 

They had fallen into a pattern of starting their days with slow foreplay, exploring their boundaries carefully, finding more common ground each time.

They visited the Garden of The Gods and then crashed at a hotel just outside of Colorado Springs. Sam went to take a shower and Dean went face first into bed and was asleep before his head even hit the pillow. He had woken up to soft, open kisses at dawn, had made a half asleep, lazy trail with his mouth down Sam’s body, licked and sucked through her white cotton panties until she was arching off the bed, orgasm silent and intense. Sam had caught up with him in the shower five minutes later, pressed him against the tiled wall and replaced his hand on his cock with her own. 

“Let me,” she’d demanded, wet body flush against his. He’d let her.

They had reached the Utah - Arizona border and taken a sharp dip south off of Highway 163 so Dean could drive through Monument Valley. They marvelled at the quiet, giant, alien rock formations, the living back drop to every Western Dean had ever seen. Deciding to detour to Arizona added four days on to their meandering trip which neither of them was adverse to. 

Sam had studied the map and put together a long list of sights to see in Arizona, the last stop before California (the final destination, looming like the silent elephant in the car with them), so she wanted to see it all. They spent the day visiting the Barringer Crater which even Dean had to admit was pretty cool. Fifty thousand years old and gaping at them monstrously from the flat red earth. Sam had gazed across its expanse for long minutes from behind her stolen sunglasses in total amazement, had knelt down to touch the rocky ground beneath their feet to see if she could still feel any energy from the ten megaton impact. 

They’d driven to Flagstaff afterwards in the roiling, sticky afternoon heat and booked a room at the first motel they’d come across with a vacancy sign, sweaty and irritable, covered in dust and sunburned across the bridge of both their noses. 

On their agenda for the next day: The Grand Canyon and an eight mile hike to the Havasu Falls, and then after that on Sam’s loose itinerary was the Hoover Dam. Dean could feel the miles in his muscles; he ached for a cool shower. 

As he pulled their bags out of the trunk, Dean could hear the clack of pool balls breaking and all American John Mellencamp soft rock streaming from the jukebox of the ramshackle saloon-style bar at the end of the motel block and felt his dry mouth water for an ice cold beer. 

Sam didn’t need convincing and after they’d freshened up she raced him to the front barn doors, chose a high round table near the back between the dart board and the pool cues with a good view of the entire room, lit poorly enough that she probably wouldn’t get carded. She settled in and sent Dean to the bar with an order of spicy BBQ wings and an extra one of whatever he was drinking. 

On his way back to their table, hands full with a pitcher, a bowl of pretzels, two glasses and two whiskey shots, he noticed Sam had company. Some cowboy in denim levis and a cream coloured hat leaned on the table in front of her and as Dean got closer he heard what had Sam laughing her most charming laugh. 

“I say this with absolute hand on heart honesty now, you are one hundred percent the _prettiest_ girl I have _ever_ seen in my life. I saw you walk in here and my heart skipped a beat,” he announced, reaching out a hand to shake Sam’s. “I’m Dwayne,” he told her. Dean put the pitcher down in the middle of the table, beer sloshing over on to Dwayne’s sleeve. 

“Nice to meet you, and thank you,” Sam said. “I’m Sam. This is my -” 

“Her boyfriend, Dean,” Dean finished for her. He used the clipped smile he usually reserved for cops, school principals, nosy CPS agents. Dwayne chuckled, immediately backed up. He tipped his hat at Dean, winked at Sam, and then weaved his way back to his table full of middle aged rednecks. 

“Possessive much?” Sam snapped under her breath. She turned the pitcher and started to pour for them as Dean took off his over shirt and got comfortable on his high stool. Dean had grunted, an uneasy feeling returning to his gut at the thought of Sam off at college, drunk at parties with carnivorous teenage frat boys everywhere and nobody watching her back. 

“He’s like Dad’s age. Did you hear the way he called you ‘girl’? He’s a fuckin’ creep,” Dean said defensively, glancing back in Dwayne’s direction. Sam’s mouth had gone flat and pissed off like it always did when Dean (in her words) acted like an overprotective Neanderthal. She had rolled her eyes and Dean felt sorry instantly, too tired to fight. He didn’t want to waste the time they had left sniping at each other, not even for a minute. 

“Nothin’ wrong with his eyesight though,” Dean said honestly, pointedly looking in the other direction, finally taking a long delicious mouthful from his beer. Sam snorted. 

“Was that a line? Did you just pull a Dean Winchester line on me? And you say Dwayne’s the creep?”

“Do you come here often?” Dean said and Sam had laughed out loud. 

The whiskey washed down smoothly between the pitchers as they engaged in friendly games of darts and pool, the house lights going lower and the volume going higher somewhere in between without either of them really noticing. 

They had been drunk and with their guards down, _complacent_. Slow dancing clumsily to REO Speedwagon and making out carelessly in the middle of a sea of bodies on the makeshift dance floor, about ready to take it back to their room, when Dean had felt a firm tap on his shoulder. When he turned his head and recognised one of their father’s munitions buddies, it was like a bucket of ice water had gone over him. 

“Dean! I thought that was you! How are you doing, son?” Jefferson embraced him roughly, clapping him hard on the back as Dean’s blood ran cold. “Is your old man around?”

“No, sir. He’s on his way to Maine for a job,” Dean said. He felt Sam’s sweaty palm slip into his, felt her step up beside him but didn’t want to look. “I’m gonna catch up with him later. Uh, how are you? How’s the family?” Dean had quickly raked his alcohol fogged mind for any detail he could think of to distract attention away from him and Sam, to get Jefferson looking the other way. He tried to remember if Jefferson had seen Sam since she was a little kid and couldn’t think.

“Good. Growing, we’re expecting twins in the fall. Hey, how’s that sister of yours, she’ll be what? Seventeen now?” Jefferson guessed, scratching his beard thoughtfully. Dean sagged a fraction with relief. Sam’s hand squeezed tighter, cutting off circulation. 

“Eighteen. She’s good, she’s going to college. Stanford. I just dropped her there,” Dean lied quickly and Jefferson had whistled, impressed. 

“Wow, well at least one of you Winchesters got some brains, huh?” He chuckled at his own joke and then smacked Dean on the arm again. “Anyway, we gotta head out. It was great to see you, kid. Tell your old man I said hey. Sorry to interrupt, I’ll let you get back to your date.”

Dean and Sam had waved and smiled, said their goodbyes politely and then wordlessly settled their bar tab and hightailed it back to their room.

“That was too fuckin’ close,” Dean lamented as Sam had locked their door from the inside. “Holy shit. If he had recognised you…” It wasn’t even worth thinking about. Dean had paced the room, unable to shake the sour feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

“You’re gonna freak out about this now aren’t you?” Sam said tiredly, toeing off her shoes. 

“Yeah, Sammy, fuck! Do you know how _wrong_ this is? I’m supposed to take care of you, not… not…”

“Fuck me?” Sam suggested helpfully.

“I can’t do this. We can’t do this, Sam. I should’ve never…” He looked over at Sam who was standing against the closed door, arms folded and wholly unimpressed. She looked so young. Too young. 

“Tomorrow we’re driving straight to Stanford,” Dean said, the words leaving an unpleasant taste in his mouth but he had to do the right thing. Sam smirked bitterly, shook her head and then pushed off, headed for the bathroom. She slammed the door hard enough to make Dean flinch. 

*

Sam has grown up a lot. He tries to be inconspicuous about it but he feels like he’s watching her all the time, re-learning her. She’s taken a few jabs at Dean’s predictability. In her eyes the fact that he hasn't changed one bit during their time apart is some kind of insult. Same music, same weapons in the trunk, same credit card scams, _same fucking haircut, Dean? Really?_

When they get to Oklahoma and start to investigate the deaths in Oasis Plains, she falls into step with him like she never left; it's like riding a bike. 

They get mistaken for a cute, happy young couple looking to purchase their first home and Sam links her arm with his, calls him ‘honey’, uses the assumption totally to their advantage. She lies so easily and Dean sees the college student mask start to slip and feels guilty that he’s relieved by it, relieved that she’s still _his_ Sam underneath, ready to prowl the earth with him like the predator she was raised to be.

It’s not the first time people have presumed they’re together and it certainly won’t be the last. People see what they want to see, they see what’s easiest and that is a tool in Sam and Dean’s arsenal; it affords them a layer of disguise and protection and they wear it like a second skin. They wear it far too well. 

They drive around the new neighbourhood, skeleton houses half erect and construction supplies abandoned, until Dean finds a furnished show home at the edge of the development. The steam shower really is unbelievable. 

*

Dean has a taste of his own medicine in Cape Girardeau and it tastes like hypocrisy. He doesn’t care for it. 

“Wait. You _told_ her?” Sam demands. “You shack up with this Cassie chick for a few weeks and you spill your guts about everything? Un-fucking-believable, Dean!” 

Dean sinks in the driver’s seat under the chastisement, unable to argue. He had been dumb to trust Cassie with the big secret, really dumb, he knows that. Hindsight is a hell of a drug. Sam is mad at him at first but the more time they spend on the case, the more time Sam spends on he and Cassie’s case, the more he realises she’s mad _for_ him. 

The hunt comes together like a sudoku puzzle but it’s not without its awkward clashes between the two alpha females. Cassie talks about the past so casually, _“I thought he was crazy!”_ She talks about their break up anecdotally, like it’s a fun story to tell at parties. Dean smiles tightly, embarrassed. 

Sam’s eyes go narrow, flashing with irritation.

“Oh, but you didn't think he was crazy the minute you thought he could help you,” Sam seethes, tea cup clattering angrily back into the saucer as she gets up to leave. "You don't deserve his help now after the way you treated him then,” she snaps at Cassie as they glare at one another.

Sam helps though regardless, her bright idea to draw the spirit over hallowed church ground saves the day, saves everybody. Dean doesn't know what he would do without her now, doesn't know how he managed the last four years without her. He knows with an absolute certainty that he won’t be able to make that sacrifice a second time and the thought is more terrifying than any homicidal monster truck driving ghost. 

Dean lounges in the passenger seat on their way out of town, boneless and relaxed with Sam glancing over every few minutes like she’s checking for damage.

“I don’t like her. You are way out of her league, Dean,” Sam says quietly after twenty miles of smooth blacktop and Skynyrd's greatest hits. “Don’t tell me you actually thought about going straight for her?” 

Dean feels his face pull into a lazy smile. Sam’s been defending his honour the entire trip and he feels like he owes her one. He stares out of the window at the blurring scenery so he doesn't have to see her reaction. 

“There’s only one woman I’d ever leave the life for, Sammy, and it ain’t Cassie.” 

As soon as the words leave his mouth he feels the world tilt; he hears Sam take a sharp breath like she’s been slapped. There’s tectonic movement at their very core and he hasn't got the balls to look at her but Sam is a master linguist when it comes to unspoken languages; he hopes she knows, hopes she understands what he’s saying without him having to say it. 

He won’t let her go again. He can’t. Dean rolls the idea around in his head as he dozes against the seat back, the yellow-green ribbon of endless farmland racing past his window. When this mission is over, when they’ve found Dad... If Sam still wants to leave, if she still wants to pick up normal where she left off, well... Maybe Dean deserves to take a running leap at normal too. Maybe it’s time he tried it, for Sam. 

*

As she mourns less and less for her apple pie life, Sam comes more and more alive in their bizarre underworld. She becomes the Sam she was meant to be and Dean sees that so clearly now that it stings his eyes; pride and regret both tearing at him. Sam is a formidable hunter. Fierce, strong, versatile and ready and willing to throw down at any given moment with any given creature using any given weapon. If she had stayed in the life and been allowed to grow there isn’t a doubt in his mind that she would be better than both him and their father put together. 

They carve out their own groove in the world and they work together like a well oiled, well loved machine. They are hive minded and their strengths are shared so evenly Dean sometimes feels like they might be unstoppable, his adrenaline driving him to new heights with each hunt. 

In New York though, he flinches when Sam introduces him as _her brother_ to broad shouldered, blue-eyed Stephen Blake. The auction house is full to the rafters with stuffy antiques that make him itch and Dean takes the hint, smiles saccharinely in the direction of the glare from Mr Blake Snr. and goes to wait in the car until Sam and her new boyfriend have finished charming the art history degrees off of one another. 

He thinks maybe a reminder of what she’s missing might be just the right trigger for her to come back to her senses so he encourages her to go out to dinner, have a _date_ , and he can’t decide if he’s fidgeting because he’s nervous or jealous when she reluctantly agrees to it. 

“So, _Stephen_ seemed nice,” Dean observes, later, when Sam is getting ready. She rolls her eyes at him in her reflection in the dresser mirror. Her hair is up and Dean can’t stop staring at the long, delicate line of her neck or the smooth skin over her collar bones where her fake pearl necklace is chastely nestled. 

“Yeah, he’s handsome, right?” Sam agrees, mascara wand flicking expertly as she blinks. “He’s actually smart as hell, too.”

“Yeah, he’s just _dreamy_ ,” Dean coos, trying to keep his tone playfully neutral. He notices a shape protruding subtly where her black dress clings a little at the hips. 

“Are you going to dinner _strapped_?” he asks, gleeful. She might look like a goddamn supermodel but you can’t take the Winchester out of the girl. Dean feels his grin stretching, beaming. Sam huffs out an annoyed breath and stands up straight, tries to smooth the material down so the large knife in her thigh holster isn’t so obvious. It doesn't work. Dean laughs out loud and is magnetised into getting up to help. 

He scans his inventory for a more suitable blade and then kneels in front of her, nudges her foot up to rest on his thigh. He gets a buoyant flashback of being in the same position when she was three, trying to teach her how to tie her shoelaces and he tries not to brush against her soft skin too much as he pushes the dress up to expose her weapon. 

She’s shaved her legs and moisturised with some silky fruity lotion and Dean has to make his breathing shallow so he doesn’t inhale too much of her scent. He slowly unclasps the strap, slides the Bowie out of its sleeve and replaces it with one of his double edged silver throwing knives. More lightweight, much flatter. He rotates the holster carefully so the knife rests against her inner thigh instead, adjusts the fastening so it squeezes her muscle just enough to be secure. 

“How’s that feel? Can you walk okay?” he asks when he’s done, politely placing her foot back on to the carpet and pretending the long firm quads and inadvertent two second flash of her black lace panties didn't just make him go half hard instantaneously in his jeans. 

Sam doesn’t move and when he dares to look up she reaches down immediately to cup his jaw, her lip bitten and expression bodeful. The pad of her thumb touches down, brushes his bottom lip in a zap of sensation that sends his pulse racing.

He knows they’re having the same thought; how easy it would be for her to just push his head right back up her skirt, how incredible it would be if he just yanked those fucking panties right off and buried his face between her legs and didn’t come up for air until she was screaming. 

Sam’s phone chirps from her handbag on the bed. Stephen insisted on picking her up and when the rush of blood in Dean’s eardrums clears he can hear a big car engine idling outside. 

He watches them go from the window. Stephen’s toothpaste ad perfect white grin as he holds the door for Sam, the goddamn chauffeur driven Rolls Royce gliding suavely out of the motel parking lot. Dean’s _not_ jealous; the Impala would smoke that thing in a drag race. 

He distracts himself with weapons maintenance. Sharpens Sam's Bowie knife for her. Walks to the town's small strip and does a load of severely overdue laundry. He picks up a deep dish pizza and a six pack on the way back and is then delighted to find _'Attack of The 50ft Woman_ ' playing on TV with minimal channel surfing because frankly, the only way Daryl Hannah could get any hotter is if she was a seven foot tall Amazonian warrior chick who wanted to overpower him and use him as a sex slave. 

He hears the same car pull up just as the movie is coming to its explosive end and checks the clock (one am) but resists the urge to go to the window again. He mutes the TV and listens hard, hears the faint sound of Sam's laughter. Silence. The car door closing. Then the rhythmic tap of her high heels approaching their room and he briefly toys with the idea of pretending he didn't wait up but Sam's already inside. She pulls off her shoes one by one, her face a grimace, before the door is even closed behind her. 

"Hey," Dean greets. "How was it?"

"He's happy to hand over the provenances," Sam supplies, all business. She snags a beer from the pack and sits down on her bed, lets her feet rest on Dean's mattress, legs a bridge between the two. She's moving a little clumsier than usual and Dean thinks he can smell the Dom Perignon on her breath. "He had paper copies at his apartment and digital versions on his computer at the auction house," she pauses to take a long pull from her bottle and he counts the beats. "So I said it was cool if he just emails them to me in the morning."

"Super," Dean says, trying not to sound relieved about it. 

"Fantasizing about Daryl Hannah dominating you again, huh?" Sam asks, gesturing at the TV. She doesn't wait for a response before she's up again in the small space between the beds, peeling her dress up her thigh. "Would you get this strap for me?"

"Sure," Dean agrees, putting down his beer, his heart rate starting to pick up. His hands aren't as nimble as he would like on the small buckles but he gets the holster loose and off with as little skin to skin contact as possible. The ringed red lines left behind on Sam's thigh send a tumble of bondage-esqe thoughts through his imagination that he tries wholeheartedly to ignore. 

"Mm, thank you," she sighs, pleasure in her voice. Sam clearly doesn't have the same restraint that he does tonight and Dean feels it closing in on him rapidly. He looks up at her and she stares back like a challenge. "Would you get my zipper, too?" she asks, but it's not really a question, she's already turning around, glancing at him over her shoulder expectantly. 

The back of her dress parts smoothly and the shoulder straps start to fall down immediately. Sam clutches it to her breast with one arm and Dean doesn’t think he’s seen her look as vulnerable since Stanford, her whole back bare, the beguiling curve of her spine exposed and unprotected. 

“Anything else, your highness?” he croaks out, reaching out for his beer to give his hands something else to do, tension crawling like ants all over him. Sam turns again, sits her ass back down on her bed opposite him, dress teetering dangerously low on her chest. Her eyes dance over him from his shoulders to ankles. 

“Yeah. You got a t-shirt I can sleep in?” 

“I did our laundry.” Dean points to the pile of clean clothes, fresh and folded neatly but no longer separated by ownership in their spare duffel. 

“So gimme the one you’re wearing,” Sam demands and Dean feels his face pull in to a frown. He crosses his arms over his t-shirt defensively. He definitely doesn’t need to be sitting around in just his boxers right now while Sam plays her champagne games. 

“No,” he tells her stubbornly. 

“Yes, Dean. You know clean ones aren’t the same,” she whines. “Come on… Please?”

He’s stretching the soft collar over his head before he even registers his own defeat, like his body is physically trained in muscle memory to do whatever Sam wants when she uses that begging tone before his mind even has a chance to catch up. He relinquishes the shirt into her outstretched palm and stares meanly at her accepting grin, trying to make it obvious that he thinks she’s a little bitch (even if he is the one clearly taking the orders). 

When she lets the front of her dress drop he feels his heartbeat catch in his throat. He squeezes his eyes shut automatically. He hates her in that moment, with the vision of her tits splashed across his mind’s eye, he hates that simply being together awakens this force in them that makes them stronger and sharper and feels _so good_ but comes with urges that are unbearable. Impossible to withstand. He can’t do a damn thing to stop it, like an addiction, like a paralyzing hurtling free fall. 

He feels her grip on his bare shoulder, the touch like a brand, opens his eyes and she’s standing again, shirt on, her bare legs in the space between his knees. She pulls the back of his neck until his face is plunged into the cushiony give of her tits through the fabric, hugs his head against herself and he’s comforted to hear that her heart is beating just as rapidly as his, right in his ear. 

“It’s okay,” Sam says to the top of his head, her voice tickling through his hair. “I still want this. Don’t freak out, Dean.”

“I thought it might be different this time around,” he admits, muffled by her body, flooded suddenly with the placidity her close proximity always brings; the arousal becoming less urgent but still prickling under his skin. “Thought we would grow out of it or somethin’.” He feels Sam huff a sympathetic laugh; she’s always somehow been more accepting of their treacherous co-dependency and everything it entails. Separation just made it more intense. Resistance by either of them is definitely futile. 

Sam gives him a reprieve, goes to wipe off her make-up in the bathroom, brushes her teeth, while he locks up, checks the salt lines, turns out the lights and then his mattress dips as she climbs in beside him. Dean lies flat on his back, eyes open but seeing nothing in the fresh darkness. He doesn’t have to wait long before Sam’s fingertips are drifting down his abdomen, the light press of her wet lips touching down on his chest. She gropes the front of his boxers, let’s out the neediest sound when she feels his dick and Dean holds his breath as her hand worms its way underneath his waistband.

“This is all I could think about tonight at dinner,” Sam whispers against his chin, fist squeezing his cock, and Dean gives himself over to it, finally, lets his mouth open under hers with a moan. The kiss is molten, exactly how he remembers, and Sam slides on top of him fluidly without breaking their connection, grinds herself down against him. She places his hands where she needs them on her body, arches into his grabbing touches and he knows what to do, where to brush gently, where to press more firmly, where to nip with his teeth and where to suck her soft skin between his lips.

Despite the years her body is still as familiar to him as his own and their re-discovery of each other in the pitch darkness gets bolder, faster, until Sam is sitting back, taking him in with a slow slick, burn and shaky, desperate breaths. 

*

The dynamic changes in a moment when John Winchester shows up, descending on them like a phantom. They’re demoted to children again as he growls out his clandestine debrief about the vampire’s nest, the dead man’s blood, the colt. He lays down his orders, holds all the cards, and they have no choice but to follow. Sam has barely said a word to him; too furious to argue or criticise, so many questions she doesn’t even know where to begin. Dean knows it’s best to just let her seethe and not interfere. 

They’ve been driving for hours and he’s kind of dazed. Kind of terrified that they’re approaching the fight of their lives with so little time to prepare. They are exhausted and beat to hell already and they have a grand total of one old magic gun with not nearly enough magic bullets and two sets of Winchester antlers locked so tightly together they can’t see what’s right under their noses; their single minded revenge mission giving them common ground for the first time ever, making them even more reckless than usual while Dean helplessly tries to remind them both that _family_ is what’s important here. That their _lives_ are more important than vengeance. That they are all he has. It falls on deaf ears. 

Dean rubs as his eyes, knocks back the last cold dregs of his coffee. The tape stopped fifty miles ago and he can’t be bothered to change it, caught in a loop of quiet panic and road lethargy. 

Dad's truck is somewhere ahead. The road to Iowa from Colorado is mostly straight and extremely long and John is too impatient to keep to the speed limit. They lost sight of his truck's rear lights half an hour ago and Dean’s not in the mood to race or get pulled over for a traffic infraction; he has a goddamn grenade launcher in the trunk for Christ’s sake and he’s wanted in two states at least already. 

“Truth or dare” Sam says into the silence suddenly and Dean barks out a surprised laugh, a Pavlovian reaction to the words alone. Sam used to eclipse any competition at Truth or Dare with a deep rooted, shocking wickedness and Dean would refuse to be outdone by _anyone_ therefore things always tended to escalate alarmingly. The game was swiftly banned by their father when they had been kids, with good reason.

“Last time we played this an entire fire department saw your tits and I got tasered by a freakin’ mall cop,” Dean remembers non-too fondly. 

“Well if you can’t handle the heat, don’t pick ‘dare’, Dean,” Sam says smartly, she smirks at him from her comfortable sprawl in the passenger seat, looking eighteen again and full of mischief, gauntlet thrown. “What’s it gonna be?”

Dean gets a sinking feeling of thrill and dread, starts quickly calculating the worst thing she could make him do in the car going seventy on the freeway and decides the possibilities are way too risky. 

“Truth,” Dean says, regretting it immediately when Sam grins like the deadliest great white shark. 

“What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?” she asks and Dean feels relief at first but then actually starts thinking about it and, shit. Sam’s a devious bitch. He feels momentarily sorry for her college buddies; they were probably lambs to the slaughter with her when it came to drinking games. 

“Dad and Pastor Jim once walked in on me getting a blowjob from this choir chick,” Dean begins and at Sam’s sceptical glare he holds up a hand; _just wait for it._ “We were in the church confessional and I was totally naked, I’m talking not even socks on… And she had her finger in my ass,” Dean grits out, face going hot. “Pastor Jim tried to have _a talk_ with me about it afterwards, _in front of Dad_ , like an intervention. He said God would still forgive me even if I was a _transgressor_.” 

Sam’s snickers, nose wrinkling, she nods her head, lips pursed in consideration.

“Pretty embarrassing,” she agrees, “but I think you can probably do better than that.”

“Fine,” Dean says, biting the inside of his cheek to try to keep from blushing. “I caught crabs one time,” he admits quietly and shuts his eyes against the soaring wave of laughter from Sam’s side of the car. “I was dating this girl, she was kind of a hippie I guess. Lived in a commune. Didn’t own a razor. Smelled like patchouli. You know how it goes,” he explains lamely while Sam doubles over, slapping the dashboard. 

“Gross. Who the fuck gets _crabs_ , Dean?” Sam gasps out, making a big deal of needing to wipe her leaking eyes with her sleeve. 

“It’s more common than you think,” Dean informs her primly and gets another squawk of her laughter. “Anyway, truth or dare, it’s your turn,” he says, trying to hurry things along. 

“Truth,” Sam sighs, lazy smile still full of mirth at his misfortune. 

“What’s the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to _you_?” Dean asks immediately, curiosity and the need for payback both overwhelming. Sam rolls her eyes at his predictable move, thinks for a moment. 

“So my second year of college, right before I moved in with Jessie, I was still dorm sharing and my roommate that year kind of didn't have any boundaries and just walked in one afternoon while I was masturbating in my bunk,” Sam says, mouth twisting in to a rueful smile and turning away from him to look out of the window. 

“Is that _it_? That’s not embarrassing! That’s like the beginning of every college girl porno movie ever made, Sam.” Dean is beyond disappointed. Shocked and disappointed that Sam could have fallen so far from her T or D pedestal.

“If you let me _finish -_ no pun intended - that’s not the embarrassing part,” Sam tells him. “So you remember that summer we spent at New Silksworth Lake? I was like fourteen and you just ran around all summer in those little red shorts. You had a job as a lifeguard. I had the biggest crush on you that summer. You were all tanned and the sun had bleached your hair and you _never_ had a shirt on… And we just lived in the water the whole time. Anyway, I saw you having sex with that girl from the canoe shack one night. You went down on her first and then you fucked her and for _years_ afterwards it was like my go-to spank bank material.” Sam laughs a little, pausing her backstory to re-calibrate. 

Dean listens, rapt, doesn’t want to take his eyes off the road or interrupt, just wants her to keep talking. He remembers the summer she’s referring to. Remembers Amanda from the canoe shack and her extremely flexible legs.

“Anyway, there was this polaroid picture of us from that summer, where we’re both sitting on a huge fallen tree? You know the one. I used to have it on the corkboard in my room and that day I’d been packing stuff away and I was looking at the picture and I guess it made me remember that summer and then one thing led to another… And then _Stephanie_ walks in and not only am I getting off, but I’m getting off to a picture of _me and my brother_ from when we were kids,” Sam says and Dean winces in sympathy, can’t stop a smile from wriggling on to his face. 

“She told _everybody_ ,” Sam says, icing on the cake, and Dean finally looks at her.

“That’s embarrassing,” he agrees, nodding, and Sam nods with him, laughter bubbling out of them both. 

“So do you think about me _every_ time, or...?” Dean asks, smug. 

“Do you like a finger up your ass every time?” Sam fires back, brows raised. 

“Touché,” Dean says, catching sight of a sign for their next exit, knowing they’ve reached a silent truce for now and more grateful than ever for the temporary levity. 

*

“ _Do it, Sam!_ You shoot me in the heart!” John bellows, more pain and anguish in the order than Dean can bear to hear. Sam’s eyes dart to his; a lifetime of checking, seeking reassurance when the command doesn’t sound like something she wants to do; it’s always up to Dean to give her the go ahead when they’re on shaky moral ground. 

This is one order that Dean will defy with his last breath if he has to. 

“Don’t,” Dean hears himself cough, a beg. He can see on Sam’s face as the moments pass, every wasted second as her mind races, calculates, as she looks into the future the way she always has (the way he never could). John’s eyes flicker back to a sickening golden hue, the lines of distress smoothing out immediately into a smirk of satisfaction as the demon regains control.

“I’m sorry,” Sam whispers as she begins to squeeze the trigger, her body stiffening to brace for the recoil as she aims. Dean’s in a nightmare. He can’t move or speak and he can’t believe his eyes as Sam shoots their father in the heart. The demon inside starts to implode, shrieking out in horror and Dean hears the colt clatter to the floorboards. He can smell and taste the heavy copper of his own blood, feels Sam’s arms slip around him.

“Dean! Dean, are you with me?” he hears Sam sob in the distance and he starts to nod just as he loses his hold on gravity and consciousness. 

Dean wakes up in a hospital with no memory of how he arrived there. He lies with his eyes closed, recognising the bleachy smell, listening to the robotic beep of his own pulse on the ECG and willing it to slow back down with shallow, controlled breaths. No breathing tube, good. No catheter, very good. He can feel the pull of stitches in his abdomen without even having to move a muscle. He’s definitely too doped up to walk. He needs to find Sam.

“We’re safe. We’re fine, Dean. You need to stay put for a day or two, so get some more rest,” Sam's voice drifts softly from his right, perfectly on cue. He cracks an eye open and she leans in to his view above, swipes her thumb over his cheekbone. “It’s over,” she tells him on a shaky breath, her eyes are blurred with tears but she’s smiling.

The concept that _it’s over_ and all that it encompasses is too much for his medication fogged brain to process and he slips back to darkness.

They hole up at Bobby’s for a month with their hackles and defences up and clandestinely stretch feelers out along all known hunter webs. It stays quiet. No demon activity. Every time a new report comes in Sam looks to him with pleading eyes, like she’s waiting for a signal. Dean isn’t ready yet to say out loud that she did the right thing but with each day of safety that passes it becomes startlingly clear that she did. By all accounts, her choice, _their father’s choice_ , lopped the head off the demon community snake and stood down a hellish goddamn uprising.

“What you and your father have done, the _lives_ you’ve _saved_ …” Bobby lamented, after they had arrived and given him a run down of the events first hand. He’d clapped a rough hand on both of their faces. “I couldn't be prouder of you two.” 

Dean understands the sacrifice. He understands the blaze of glory. He understands that it's what his father wanted all along. It hurts just the same.

At the four weeks mark Sam comes quietly back into their shared spare bedroom just as dawn is breaking. She’s been running a lot before sun up; Bobby’s dog has never been happier for the companionship. Wrapped in only a towel, she tiptoes over the creaky boards and sits next him on the edge of his cot. He’s been letting her have the bed; both of them too injured, too traumatised, to even think about anything but resting. 

She skims his blanket down and his t-shirt up to look at the healing wounds. The internal stitches would dissolve on their own, they were told. 

Her warm palm rests over his heartbeat as she checks, while she wills him to open his eyes, radiating heat as a taut minute slips by. It’s the most physical contact they’ve since the hospital and the effect on him is shamefully fast. He’s been waiting for this, _the talk,_ has been wondering how much time he had before Sam wanted to bail. Their mission is over, after all. He’s been successfully brushing Sam off for days but she has him pinned down right now.

“Dean,” she starts as he slits his eyes against the fiery morning light. He doesn’t want to have this conversation yet, has a better idea, so he jerks on her elbow quickly to pull her off balance and kisses her as soon as she’s in reach. She opens easily, taken by surprise and he flips their positions, puts Sam on to her back against the floor with no resistance, rolls on top and grinds his hips down against her to let her feel. 

Sam yields immediately, whispering out encouragement like she's been waiting _forever_ for him to do this. She pushes frantically at his boxers, slipping the waistband down, her sharp excited breaths in his ear and her fingernails digging crescents into his ass. The towel is threadbare anyway and twisted awkwardly around her body; it rips loudly straight up the middle when Dean yanks on it to make room for Sam’s legs to open wider.

She moans into his neck as he lines up, his cock gliding against her clit and then down, barely glancing inside. He feels her body tense in anticipation, feels her go even slicker and the hunger in him takes over. He stares at her face as he shoves inside, wants to watch what he can do to her. 

Sam gapes up at him in shock, awe-struck. 

"Oh, _fuck_ , Dean," she keens as he starts to move. Her head thrashes, her lip bitten, and she clings to him, pushes up against him, trying to get more. Dean knows she can take it so he fucks her the way she’s always begged him to, sets a pace that has his scars re-opening, that has Sam chanting at him, a litany of _yes, yes, Dean, Dean, fuck, please_. 

He lets himself drown in it; every gasp and every shudder, the way her body grips him, the way her legs clamp around him and cross at the ankles to pull him closer, faster. The way her jaw drops open when she starts to come, going silent and stiff until she sobs his name out, squeezing him so tight he thinks he might pass out.

Completely _done_ , Dean doesn't dare open his mouth to speak, he doesn't dare lift his head to look; unbelieving that he just did that in Bobby’s house. Appalled yet grotesquely satisfied. Sam combs her fingers the wrong way through the short hair on the back of his head and says nothing, stunned into drowsy silence. 

They sleep in, on top of one another in a knotted heap in the tight cradle of the cot, fitting together like they always have, like the universe molded them that way, like it was always meant to lead to this. 

Just one more fucking thing Sam has been right about all along. 

They get called down for lunch eventually and eye each other warily from opposite ends of the rickety kitchen table while Bobby dishes out his famous explosive kidney bean and beef chilli. 

Dean stares transfixed at the smooth column of muscle in Sam’s neck, does a dot to dot in his head of the moles that scatter there, imagines that if he looks long enough he’ll be able to see her pulse beating. He can still taste the fresh shower water he sucked off her skin right there. 

No way is he sleeping in the cot tonight. 

“Dean,” Bobby says loudly, snapping engine oil soaked fingers in Dean’s field of vision, breaking the spell. “I said do you want me to help you give your car a tune up before you hit the road?”

“Uh, sure,” Dean says, grabbing his beer, glancing at Sam, suspicion rising. 

“I told Bobby we’ll be out of his hair by the end of the week. Time to get moving, right?” Sam says with a proud smirk, she raises her own bottle and air-salutes him. 

“Right,” Dean agrees with all the fake enthusiasm he can muster. _Fuck_ , he thinks sourly. 

Sam comes to bed late, after eleven. Dean sits up on the mattress, twisting the edge of the sheets in impatience as she stands in the shard of moonlight in front of the window to slip out of her clothes; the purring sound of the denim sliding down her legs making him breakout in goosebumps. 

“Bobby’s in bed right across the hall so we have to be quiet,” Sam whispers, finally moving closer and Dean nods eagerly, grabbing for her, already searching for her mouth in the dark. His lips find her collar bone first so he starts there and maps upwards. Like a cosmic joke, the bedframe whines obnoxiously as Sam climbs astride him and they both have to freeze. The next shift of weight wrenches another laboured squeal from the old frame and Sam drops her forehead to his shoulder, he can feel her ribcage shaking with silent laughter. 

“This isn’t funny,” Dean hisses, feeling like a sexually frustrated teenager again. He feels like his cock has been hard since lunchtime. This is totally fucking typical. 

“Sshhh,” Sam comforts into his ear, leaving gentle kisses on his cheek and starting a torturously slow dismount. Dean feels bereft as she lets go, like the warmth has been sucked from him. “I’ll just take the cot tonight,” she says softly.

Sam sleeps in his dirty t-shirt. He listens to her steady breaths and thinks about the ways California won’t be so bad. Great weather. Hot girls everywhere. Will they get an apartment and live together or will Sam want her own place on campus? He chews his lip, worries about going soft, worries about all the things he’s gonna miss and all the lives he might never get to save. 

Sam murmurs in her sleep, peaceful dreams only now ever since they killed Yellow Eyes, and Dean nods unseen. He can do this, for Sam. He has no reason not to now. 

Dean points the car west and tries to plan the miles per day in his head, makes a mental route. It feels good to have the road moving under the tyres again even if the end destination is already filling him with a looming sense of claustrophobia. Sam has a heavy, musty box of files on the seat between them that she coveted from Bobby’s stash and whatever’s in them has her completely engaged. After twenty minutes of AC/DC and road ambiance he pointedly clears his throat.

“So, when we get there,” he starts, wondering which IDs he’ll need to ditch. "Do you want me to be your boyfriend or your brother?” 

It might be the bravest thing he's ever said to her and the most ridiculous. Sam stops reading and tilts her head at him, expression surprised.

“Which do you want to be?” she counters after a moment, closing the file and tossing it back into the box with a waft of dust. Dean can’t even begin to answer that so he ignores her. Sam’s the one calling the shots here, not him.

“I think you’re going the wrong way,” Sam says, voice amused, and he snaps a look at her. She holds up her hands in the universal placating motion. “I’m not insulting your alpha male sense of direction. I just mean we need to be heading south to get to Kansas, right? I think I found us something interesting down in Lebanon.”

“You wanna work a case?” Dean says, body flooding with a hopeful, woozy relief. He pulls the car over, bumps on to a gravel shoulder. "Why didn't you say so?"

“I tried for the last week," Sam says on an exasperated eye roll. "Wait. Were you taking me back to Stanford?” she realises out loud, grin appearing like a beam of sunlight. Dean’s mind races, trying to figure out where he missed a step. He stares at her. “You were gonna come with me back to Stanford?” she asks like it's wondrous. 

“Yeah,” Dean shrugs, fiddling with a loose thread on the leather steering wheel cover. “That was the deal, right? You deserve to be happy, Sammy.” 

Sam reaches over the box between them, brushes his jaw, traces the pad of her thumb around the shell of his ear. When he looks, she smiles at him the same way she does when he repeats her boring monologue back to her word for word to prove he _was_ listening. The same smile he gets when he fixes something she thought was broken beyond repair (hair dryers, CD players, snapped necklaces, ripped jeans, busted pen knives. Dean’s never come up against a cherished Sam possession he couldn't make good as new). He lives for that smile. He’ll stay in one place and work a day job and become a civilian for that smile. 

“We’ve still got work to do. Let’s head to Kansas,” Sam decides. “We need to get a room or something though ‘cause if you don’t fuck me again soon I think I’m gonna lose it.”

“Jesus,” Dean breathes as he re-starts the ignition. 

**  
  
*  
**


End file.
